Robert Knox, an expert on Ceylon after…
December 1689 CE
Robert Knox, an expert on Ceylon after having spent nineteen years as a well-treated captive of the King of Kandy from 1659 to 1678, has became a close friend and collaborator of Robert Hooke of the Royal Society, for whom he frequently brings back gifts from his travels on behalf of his employer, the British East India Company.
In return, Hooke takes Knox to the local coffeehouses for chocolate and tobacco, at this time considered luxuries.
On one occasion, Knox presents Hooke with samples of "a strange intoxicating herb like hemp" which he dubs "Indian hemp" or "Bangue"; it is better known today as cannabis indica, a plant which is unknown at this time in Europe.
Hooke gives an address to the Society in December 1689 in which he provides what is the first detailed description of cannabis in English, commending its possible curative properties and noting that Knox "has so often experimented it himself, that there is no Cause of Fear, tho' possibly there may be of Laughter."